When The Party's Over
by illyrilex
Summary: One-shot follow-up to Red: Mary has a somewhat strange, late-night conversation with her bestie. Total slice of life nonsense.


**Hi!**

**So, like, I got hit with this sudden burst of inspiration after finishing Red. Sadly, it's kindasorta required reading for this one, as it picks up almost immediately after, though if you're okay with King and Mary just being bros, then, my buddy, my guy, this story is for you. Notes at the end. Onward~**

* * *

It was almost one in the morning when the notification chime on Mary Ryan's cell phone sounded from somewhere near the kitchen counter. She sat up quickly, to the dismay of her boyfriend, local celebrity Terry Bogard, and nearly knocked their popcorn over as she stood.

"Who on earth is texting you at this hour?" He asked, seemingly more annoyed than curious.  
"My other significant other," Mary answered simply as she stepped over her dog, a medium-sized English Pointer named Anton, on her way to retrieve her device.

Terry made a face as he hit pause on the remote control.

"Weren't you over there earlier? What could she possibly need right _now_?"  
"Special counsel. Don't be jealous."  
"I'm not jealous," Terry protested as he sat up, "but after the day you've had -"  
"That's not important," Mary said as she plucked the device from the counter. She promptly looked down so she could read the blanket of texts that covered her lock screen:

"J'ai fini le vodka be usds I could"  
"And Marrons 1jerk mdr"  
".c'est somethhjh"

Mary snickered; this wasn't the first time she had been treated to a bizarre English-slash-French thought process that Autocorrect couldn't be bothered to decipher, but it was probably the first time that she knew _exactly_ why the messages said what they said, and what they actually meant.

"Is everything okay?" Terry called from across the room as the text bell sounded once more.  
"Ummm… sure," Mary replied distractedly while reading the latest message, which was a motley assortment of emojis that included a wailing face, a face that was laughing so hard it was crying, and a wide-eyed face that didn't have a mouth.

"Go ahead and hit play while I take this."

With that, Mary stepped out onto the balcony and quietly shut the door behind her before sitting down in a plush chair. She tapped the appropriate icons and waited for the call to connect: The line barely rang twice before there was an answer.

"Don't come over 'm _fine_!"

The slurred voice of Mary's friend, a bartender and fellow fighter named Cécile who chose to be called by the alias King because of a host of baggage that had baggage, issued from the small speaker.

"Bb," Mary started, "What -"  
"Iss over," King interrupted. The R in "over" came out a little strange - a remnant of the French accent she had lost years before, but a clear indicator of some form of excitement.

"You mean the Vanessa thing?" Mary inquired.  
"Well, _yeah_! What _else_ would I mean?"  
"Okay, but you sound really happy, so, like, what happened?!"  
"We talked," King started.  
"Talked or '_talked_?'"  
"Both," King sang. She paused before saying, "An'now I'm doing laundry."  
"Laundry?"

Mary quirked a brow, momentarily thrown off by the strange non-sequitur, until awareness hit her like a ton of bricks.

"...Ew."  
"Don't be _gross_," King told her, "It's 'cuzza her _perfume_."  
"Sure it is."

King didn't reply, which caused Mary to laugh as she imagined the look on her face.

"Why are you _laughing_?!"  
"Because I know you," Mary replied, "and I know that -"  
"You know _nothing_, Mary Ryan!"  
"Whatever, bb. Did you at least stay sober long enough to sort everything out?"  
"I started drinking _after_ she dumped me."  
"She broke it off with you?!"  
"Well, _yeah_! She's still _married_, you know. And her husband texted her all… 'Let's work things out,' and she was all, 'Hell yes' and I don't blame her at _all_. She has a family. I have a _cat_. We _both_ win."

Mary frowned; despite the happiness in King's tone there was something inherently sad about that statement.

"Bb…?"  
"Yeeeeaaahhhhhhh?"  
"Are you sure you don't need me to come over there?"  
"Terry needs you more," King answered. "Besides, if you come over here again he's prob'ly gunna think that you're cheating on him with me. Which would be really funny…! Can you _imagine_?!"  
"Do I _want_ to?" Mary asked.  
"Why not," King said in a far-off, dreamy tone. "Think about the sorta things guys picture when girls hook up. Think about the type of things _Terry_ might imagine about us."  
"Terry's imagination isn't really his strong suit, though," Mary said thoughtfully. "Like, if he ever even _thought_ about that he'd probably just picture us wearing string bikinis, seductively eating hamburgers together… among other things."

King laughed - a sound that Mary had heard so seldomly over the past few weeks that she almost thought something was wrong.

"Give the lad some credit. He'd be able to come up with something better than _that_."  
"Should I go inside and ask him?"  
"I'd be working," King began, seemingly unaware that Mary had even said anything, "and you'd come in in a huff because the two of you had some kind of fight about… I'unno. Something."  
"This sounds like the start of a porno," Mary stated with a smirk.  
"Anyway, I'd offer you a drink, and then another… something you wouldn't expect would get you really drunk, like some daiquiris or some shit."

Mary wrinkled her nose.

"_Daiquiris_?"  
"Sure, whatever you want me to make you," King went on. "So then you'd be talking and _talking_, and I'd be wiping down the counter because that's all anyone thinks bartenders do anyway, right? We're always wiping down counters?"  
"Aren't you, though?"  
"ANYWAY," King said loudly. "So, _then_! Then!"  
"...Then?"  
"We'd have this _really_ weird moment where we just look into each other's eyes -"  
"This sounds like fan fiction," Mary interrupted with a cackle. "AU of course. Hurt-slash-comfort."  
"Friends to lovers. Anyway, we'd kiss," King continued. "And, because I'm _such_ a great friend I'd _definitely_ entertain the thought of fucking you even though you're drunk."  
"That doesn't even make sense within the confines of your clear chaotic neutral alignment."  
"Whatever, we're kissing now."  
"Drunk people can't consent."  
"Yeah, but I _suck_. Anyway, Terry bursts into the bar, with flowers and a strap-on or whatever weird shit you guys are into to try to gain your forgivness and sees you being drunk and me being a terrible friend and we'd fight, but I'd fucking _mace_ him!"

Mary laughed so hard that she snorted as she imagined the wild and vaguely disturbing scenario.

"Why would you have mace?!"  
"So that rib-cracking... rapists... couldn't…"

King trailed off while Mary made a pained expression. In all of the Vanessa-related weirdness she had almost forgotten that her friend was still in the middle of a nasty relapse that consisted of nightmares and obsessive thoughts about her trauma.

"Céc," she blurted sympathetically, the use of King's actual nickname somewhat unintentional.  
"Freudian slip," King said so fast that Mary barely even understood her. "Anyway -"  
"Bb," Mary cut her off. "Are you really okay?"

The line went silent and Mary knew that King was probably sitting with her head back against the sofa, pressing her lips together because she always did that when she was thinking. Hopefully she wasn't blinking back tears; she had a tendency to cry easier when she was drunk.

"I think… I'm actually… a little _happy_," King said slowly, her slurring much more apparent because of her cadence. "I _slept _with someone. _Me_. Thassa breakthrough, right? Dr. Shelley's gunna congratulate me with candy or sum'thing."  
"I'm glad that you're happy but…"  
"'_But_' nothing! I realized that this… thing… with Vanessa wasn't a mistake. Not entirely, anyway. I got laid for the first time in a _while_ and it was great. She does this thing with her -"  
"Aaaayyyyy," Mary practically yelled while bolting upright in her chair. "I do _not_ need to know anything about that!"  
"All I'm saying is she's amazing."  
"Okay, well now that she's going to be amazing with her family, where does that leave you? You _say_ that you're happy, and that's great, but how much of that is the liquor talking?"  
"I'unno. I guess… we'll see."

Mary frowned. She had half a mind to hop on her bike and speed over to King's apartment so that she could get her to sober up for the express purpose of gauging her state of mind sans alcohol but thought better of it. Instead, she stared at the dark baseball field across the street, biting her bottom lip while thinking of what to say next.

"D'you remember when we met?" King suddenly asked.  
"Of course," Mary replied, a little confused by what, exactly, her intoxicated pal was about to bring up. "Why do you ask?"  
"No reason."  
"Pffft. There's totally a reason. What's on your mind, drunky?"  
"Je sais pas… I was… un putain de… _mess_. And you didn't care."  
"You weren't like Big's other goons," Mary said quietly. "I could see that there was a good person under all of that androgyny and sarcasm."  
"Even now?"  
"Especially now. Bb, what are you getting at?"  
"I don't even know," King replied honestly. "J'ai la nausée."  
"Well, why don't _you_ go throw up, and _I'll_ call you tomorrow to make sure you're okay."

There was a brief silence between the pair before King spoke.

"I have to work tomorrow," she said while stifling a burp.  
"What time?"  
"Mid-shift."

All at once Mary came to the realization that she had the perfect opportunity to steer the conversation back to a more lighthearted direction before saying goodnight.

"Okay, then I'll stop by," she said, unable to contain her laughter. King immediately started giggling right along with her, clearly aware of what was coming.

"You can make me some daiquiris."

* * *

_I know, I know - this was damn-near stream-of-consciousness, but you know what? I had a good time writing it, and, hopefully, you had a good time reading it. (For the love of all that is holy let me know!) Anyway, let's dissect this:_

_* Cécile Levasseur = King (obviously not canon but it should be goddamnit)_  
_* By the end of Red King has ingested a lot of vodka, mixed with a smoothie as well as straight. She's feeling pretty good._  
_* The translation to King's text messages is a little bit of an adventure, so buckle in. J'ai fini le vodka means "I finished the vodka." The rest of the sentence is supposed to say "Because I could." I actually sat and purposely fucked up the word "because" until AutoCorrect didn't kick in. Going on, "Marrons 1jerk" refers to her cat, Marron, and is a parallel to How Do You Sleep? when she drunkenly tries to text that the cat's a dick. Now! "1jerk" is interesting. When it comes to texting in French, words are shortened into all kinds of crazy acronyms. King's statement about the cat is in an amalgam of English and French - she is trying to say he is "un jerk" or "a jerk." However, a rule of texting in French is to replace words with numbers that sound alike. Un = 1. The cat is a jerk (singular). Does that make sense?_  
_* Further down the French texting rabbit hole: MDR/mdr (capitalization doesn't matter) means Morte de rire, which means "dying (or dead) from laughter," which translates, in text speak to LOL or ROFL_  
_* C'est means "it's" or "that's." This last text message is basically gibberish. "It's something."_  
_* In Red's fifth chapter Mary makes a joke about King and Vanessa fucking; "Are you going to talk? Or talk?"_  
_* I had the pleasure of watching an amazing team of authors, Resident Evil's Problematic_Wesker_Stans, come up with fanfiction literally on the fly. Seriously one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, and a huge source of inspiration._  
_* Fucking your drunk friend while you're sober is wack. Don't do it.  
* Idk, guys. I feel like Terry and Mary have probably tried pegging._  
_* King having mace (and using it on Terry) is a direct nod to fellow writer and fren RexMadison's story Drug-Induced Chipmunk Bastards. Go read it, it's fun._  
_* "Rib-cracking rapist." Do you even go here? Much Like Suffocating is just a couple of clicks away, and explains everything._  
_* Je sais pas = I don't know; un putain de = a fucking; j'ai la nausée = I feel sick/nauseous_  
_* King and Mary totally met right after King's battle with Ryo in Art of Fighting. She loses her fight at L'Amour, goes to the cops, meets Mary. A bromance is born._

_Okay, that was a lot to digest. Sorry! Anyway, I love, love, love writing King/Mary so, like... that's it. I just wanted another excuse to write them and my brain gave me one. As always, thoughts and feels are appreciated! Cheers~_


End file.
